Carcass....Their five albums took them from being one of the key bands in the evolution of grindcore, to being one of the first melodeth bands - they really covered everything in a short space of time. The stuff in between was more conventional death metal - pick what you like most and check that out.
One of their guitarists went on to found Arch Enemy. The other one plays in an Cream-inspired blues rock trio called Firebird, who I saw supporting Orange Goblin once...you know me, if I like a band, eclecticism is always at play. Firebird are weird....you know how metal has a blues influence? They are a blues rock band, but you can hear flashes of the death metal musician in him in the structure of some of the riffs. Everyone there watching was a guitar freak, and looked stunned when he switched to harmonica for a few songs xD

Well lookie here, we hit "very high". Your mentions of death metal got me checking some stuff out again, must be that...
And also as you're new(ish) to last.fm, I should point out how I found you XD. You viewed the metalsoc group...it shows the last six people who viewed it. I figured you might have wondered.